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"Selva" means forest or jungle.
Watching the Mayan Women
Luisa Villani
I hang the window inside out
like a shirt
drying in a breeze
and the arms that are missing come to me
Yes, it's
a song, one I don't quite comprehend
although I do understand the laundry.
White ash
and rain water, a method
my aunt taught me, but I'll never know
how she learned
it in Brooklyn. Her mind
has gone to seed, blown by a stroke,
and that dandelion
puff called memory
has flown far from her eyes. Some things remain.
Procedures.
Methods. If you burn
a fire all day, feeding it snapped
branches and
newspapers
the faces pressed against the print
fading into
flames-you end up
with a barrel of white ash. If
you take that
same barrel and fill it
with rain, let it sit for a day,
you will have
water
that can bring brightness to anything.
If you take
that water,
and in it soak your husband's shirts,
he'll pause
at dawn when he puts one on,
its softness like a haunting afterthought.
And if he
works all day in the selva,
he'll divine his way home
in shirtsleeves
aglow with torchlight.
from Hayden's Ferry Review, Issue 26, Spring
/ Summer 2000
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Copyright 2000 by Luisa Villani.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission (click for permissions information).
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